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She sat for a full five minutes, deep breathing and pulling herself together. She hadn’t felt this much fear since she was seven years old and made the worst decision of her life.
Finally, she checked her makeup in the mirror on her sun visor and, applied fresh lipstick, and looked at her phone. By the time she got to the first family on her list, she’d better be in full control of herself.
Chapter Thirteen
He could tell by the sudden paleness of Dana’s face and the way she’d tried to sweep her eyes casually over the room that she’d sensed him. He’d been thinking about her, planning for their eventual meeting. Somehow, he must have sent off unconscious vibrations she’d picked up on.
Careful. Don’t want to spook her.
He’d have to learn to keep his thoughts to himself when she was around. But who knew she’d be so sensitive to him? So susceptible?
Susceptible. That was a good word. She’d make an excellent victim with her susceptibility.
He’d been so hard this morning just remembering Leanne. He’d had to take a cold shower before he could leave the house. Tonight, he’d meet Tony and pluck one of the delightful little flowers from the big van.
And tomorrow, victim number two. He already had her picked out and a plan in place. This, too, took some careful maneuvering. And if it didn’t work tomorrow, there was always the next day. But he had a time limit. If one plan failed, he’d have to figure out another.
****
Cole was sure the coffee had eaten a hole in his stomach by now, yet here he was, sipping at yet another mug of the venomous brew. But Nita Sanchez sat in front of him with her completed autopsy report, a copy of which he held in his hands, and he needed all the fortification he could get to deal with it.
“I’ve seen vicious,” Nita told him, “and I’ve seen sadistic. I won’t say you get used to it, but you learn to protect your emotions after a while. But to see what someone’s done to a young girl like this…” She rubbed her eyes. “There’s a terrible evil out there, Cole. You’ve got to find him before he does this again.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“I cannot imagine the pain Leanne went through. This attack was…depraved.”
“Jesus. God.” Cole had to force himself to keep reading. “He bit her?”
Nita nodded, gripping the arms of her chair to control her obvious rage.
Cole had to swallow hard against the vitriol rising in his throat. “Were you able to get any impressions?”
She shook her head. “No. I think he used something over his teeth, too. He was well prepared.”
“And the massive bruising on her thighs and buttocks?”
“That’s where he pinched her.”
“What about DNA?”
“I doubt we’ll get any. I found traces of latex, which means he wore gloves.”
Cole dropped the report back on his desk and forked his fingers through his hair. “It also means he was prepared. This was a premeditated act.”
Nita’s eyes were filled with a volatile combination of misery and rage. Most of the bodies she worked on died of natural causes or were accident victims of some kind. Salado was a fairly quiet county, which was why he’d taken the job in the first place. While the latter could be badly injured and often mangled, he knew nothing compared to what had been done to sixteen-year-old Leanne Pritchard.
Meeting with her parents had been the worst hour of his day. He had no answers for them, no explanation. No assurance that this man would be caught in a hurry. But catch him he would. That was for damn sure. This was his town now, his county, and he wasn’t about to allow this evil to linger.
His only problem was, he had no idea how to get rid of it. This was one smart son of a bitch. He left no clues, no traces, nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And to add to his shitty day, sickened by the crime and dreading the visit with the parents, he’d been more abrupt than he needed to be with Dana Moretti. Sure, she should know better than to try to extract information out of him with a case this fresh, but he could have been a little nicer about showing her the door, especially when she volunteered to help. God knows, he could use every bit he could get.
Especially with that crazy theory she floated.
Damn.
“Earth to Cole.” Nita’s voice broke into his reverie.
